Monday, December 31, 2012

I have been properly punished for so much treachery as went to
that re-urging the prayer that you would begin writing, when all the time
(—after the first of those words had been spoken which bade me write—) I
was full of purpose to send my own note last evening,—one which should do its
best to thank you:—but see, the punishment! At home I found a note from Mr
Horne—on the point of setting out for Ireland, too unwell to manage to come over
to me,—anxious, so he said, to see me before
leaving London, and with only Tuesday or to-day to allow the opportunity of it,
if I should choose to go and find him out: so I considered all things and
determined to go—but not till so late, did I determine, on Tuesday, that there
was barely time to get to Highgate .. wherefore no letter reached you to beg
pardon .. and now this underserved —beyond the usual
undeservedness,—this last-day-of-the-year’s gift—do you think or not think my
gratitude weighs on me? When I lay this with the others, and remember what you
have done for me—I do bless you—so as I cannot but believe must reach the
all-beloved head all my hopes and fancies and cares fly straight to. Dearest,
whatever change the new year brings with it, we are together—I can give you no
more of myself—indeed, you give me now—(back again if you choose, but changed
and renewed by your possession—) the powers that seemed most properly mine: I
could only mean that, by the expressions to which you refer—only could mean that
you were my crown and palm branch, now and forever, and so, that it was a very
indifferent matter to me if the world took notice of that fact or no–—Yes,
dearest, that is the meaning of the prophecy—which I was stupidly blind
not to have read and taken comfort from long ago– You are the veritable
Siren—and you 'wait me', and will sing 'song for song'– And this is my first song, my true
song—this love I bear you– I look into my heart and then let it go forth under
that name—love—I am more than mistrustful of many other feelings in me: they are
not earnest enough,—so far, not true enough—but this is all the flower of my
life which you call forth and which lies at your feet."

At her mention of Landor's verses (see her previous letter) he suddenly reinterprets them: Miss Barrett is the true Siren. This theme of her Siren-ism will continue in these letters, despite her initial protest. After all, Sirens brought doom to men. Although she was certain that she was going to bring doom to Browning.

"Now let me say it––what you are to remember:—that if I had the
slightest doubt, or fear, I would utter it to you on the instant—secure in the
incontested stability of the main fact, even though the heights at the
verge in the distance should tremble and prove vapour—and there would be a deep
consolation in your forgiveness—indeed, yes,—but I tell you, on solemn
consideration, it does seem to me that,—once take away the broad & general
words that admit in their nature of any freight they can be charged with,—put
aside love, and devotion, and trust—and then I seem to have said
nothing of my feeling to you—nothing whatever: <Indeed I so far
conform myself to your pleasure, as I understand it, as never to try,
even, to express>. "

The bracketed sentence was lightly crossed out by Browning--who perhaps wanted it to be read after all. There is more to expression than speech or writing.

"I will not write more now—on this subject—believe you are my
blessing and infinite reward beyond possible desert in intention,—my life has
been crowned by you, as I said. May God bless you ever—thro’ you I shall be
blessed. May I kiss your cheek and pray this, my own, all-beloved?

I must add a word or two of other things: I am very well now,
quite well—am walking and about to walk. Horne—or rather his friends—reside in
the very lane Keats loved so much—Millfield Lane: Hunt lent me once the little
copy of the first Poems dedicated to him—and on the title-page was recorded in
Hunt’s delicate charactery that 'Keats met him with this, the presentation-copy,
or whatever was the odious name,—in M. Lane—called Poets’ Lane by the gods–
Keats came running, holding it up in his hand'–
Coleridge had an affection for the place, and Shelley 'knew' it—and I can
testify it is green and silent, with pleasant openings on the grounds and ponds,
thro’ the old trees that line it– But the hills here are far more open and wild
and hill-like,—not with the eternal clump of evergreens and thatched summer
house .. to say nothing of the 'invisible railing' miserably visible every
where."

That is just the sort of literary gossip Miss Barrett eats up. He is referring to James Leigh Hunt--most refer to him as Leigh Hunt--in case anyone wonders.

"You very well know what a vision it is you give me—when
you speak of standing up by the table to care for my flowers .. (which I
will never be ashamed of again, by the way—I will say for the future,—'here are
my best'—in this as in other things) .. Now, do you remember, that once I bade
you not surprize me out of my good-behaviour by standing to meet me unawares as
visions do, some day—but now—omne ignotum [the unknown]? No,
dearest!"Sounds like he is getting a hankering to "express" himself to the standing Miss Barrett. Think of the scandal!

"Ought I to say there will be two days more? till Saturday—and if
one word comes, one line—think!

I am wholly yours—yours, beloved! RB"

Browning's New Years Eve letter is far more decorous than his hung over Christmas letter. Let's hope he does not attempt a letter on the 1st.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Miss Barrett sends forth a letter from Wimpole Street following Browning's visit of the 29th:

"Tuesday.

When you are gone I find your flowers; & you never spoke of
nor showed them to me—so instead of yesterday I thank you today—thank you. Count
among the miracles, that your flowers live with me—I accept that for an
omen, dear—dearest! Flowers in general, all the flowers, die of despair when
they come into the same atmosphere .. used to do it so
constantly & observably that it made me melancholy & I left off for the
most part having them here. Now, you see, how they put up with the close room,
& condescend to me & the dust!—it is true & no fancy! To be sure
they know that I care for them & that I stand up by the table myself to
change their water & cut their stalks freshly at intervals .. that
may make a difference perhaps. Only the great reason must be that they are
yours, & that you teach them to bear with me patiently."The last of the Sonnet Sequence refers to the flowers:Belovëd, thou hast brought me many flowersPlucked in the garden, all the summer through,And winter, and it seemed as if they grewIn this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.So, in the like name of that love of ours,Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,And which on warm and cold days I withdrewFrom my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowersBe overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to doThy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

"Do not pretend even, to misunderstand what I meant to say
yesterday of dear Mr Kenyon. His blame would fall as my blame of myself has
fallen: he would say .. will say .. 'it is ungenerous of her to let such a risk
be run! I thought she would have been more generous.' There, is Mr Kenyon’s
opinion as I forsee it! Not that it would be spoken, you know! he is too kind.
And then, he said to me last summer, somewhere à propos to the flies or
butterflies, that he had 'long ceased to wonder at any extreme of foolishness
produced by—love'– He will of course think you very very foolish, but not
ungenerously foolish like other people——

Never mind. I do not mind indeed. I mean, that, having said to
myself worse than the worst perhaps of what can be said against me by any who
regard me at all, & feeling it put to silence by the fact that you do
feel so & so for me,—feeling that fact to be an answer to all, .. I cannot
mind much, in comparison, the railing at second remove.– There will be a nine
days railing of it & no more!—and if on the ninth day, you should not
exactly wish never to have known me, the better reason will be demonstrated to
stand with us. On this one point the wise man cannot judge for the fool his
neighbour. If you do love me, the inference is
that you would be happier with than without me—& whether you do, you know
better than another: so I think of you & not of them .. always
of you! When I talked of being afraid of dear Mr
Kenyon, I just meant that he makes me nervous with his all-scrutinizing
spectacles, put on for ‘great occasions,’ & his questions which seem to
belong to the spectacles, they go together so!—and then I have no presence of
mind, as you may see without the spectacles. My only way of hiding (when people
set themselves to look for me) would be the old child’s way of getting behind
the window curtains or under the sofa:—& even that might not be effectual if I had recourse to it now–
Do you think it would? Two or three times I have fancied that Mr Kenyon
suspected something—but if he ever did, his only reproof was a
reduplicated praise of you—he praises you always & in relation to
every sort of subject."This is the first time that she seems to not question their relationship. Always she is pushing him away but here she seems to be comforting Browning. This does not negate her reservations that he would be better off without her holding her back, but rather an observation that she does not care what anyone will think except Browning.

"What a misomonsism you
fell into yesterday, you who have so much great work to do which no one else can
do except just yourself!—& you, too, who have courage & knowledge, &
must know that every work, with the principle of life in it, will live,
let it be trampled ever so under the heel of a faithless & unbelieving
generation—yes, that it will live like one of your toads, for a thousand years
in the heart of a rock.All men can teach at second or third hand, as you said
.. by prompting the foremost rows .. by tradition & translation:—all,
except poets, who must preach their own doctrine & sing their own
song, to be the means of any wisdom or any music, & therefore have stricter
duties thrust upon them, & may not lounge in the στοα [portico] like the conversation-teachers. So much I
have to say to you, till we are in the Siren’s island, … & I, jealous
of the Siren!–

— 'The Siren waits thee singing song for song,'

says Mr Landor. A prophecy which refuses to class you with the
‘mute fishes,’ precisely as I do.

And are you not my ‘good’—all my good now—my only good ever? The
Italians would say it better without saying more."

Yes, I do believe that Miss Barrett is working at cheering up Browning today. He must have been down in the dumps when he came to visit yesterday. She is setting him on his charger and sending him out to teach the world with his poetry.

"I had a letter from Miss Martineau this morning who accounts for
her long silence by the supposition, .. put lately to an end by scarcely
credible information from Mr Moxon, she says .. that I was out of England,—gone
to the South from the 20th of September. She calls herself the strongest of
women, & talks of 'walking fifteen miles one day & writing fifteen pp.
another day without fatigue'—also of mesmerizing & of being infinitely happy
except in the continued alienation of two of her family who cannot forgive her
for getting well by such unlawful means. And she is to write again to tell me of
Wordsworth, & promises to send me her new work in
the meanwhile—all very kind.

So here is my letter to you which you asked for so 'against the
principles of universal justice.' Yes, very unjust—very unfair it was—only, you
make me do just as you like in everything. Now confess to your own conscience
that even if I had not a lawful claim of a debt against you, I might come to ask
charity with another sort of claim, oh 'son of humanity.' Think how much more
need of a letter I have than you can have, .. & that if you have a
giant’s power, ‘tis tyrannous to use it like a giant’– Who would take tribute from the desert? How
I grumble. Do let me have a letter directly! remember that no other light
comes to my windows, & that I wait 'as those who watch for the morning'—'lux mea [my light]!'

May God bless you—and mind to say how you are exactly, and
dont neglect the walking, pray do not!

Your own–

She doesn't grumble much at all in this letter, building up her man and ending with a mild teaze. She's a sweet girl.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Miss Barrett responds to Mr. Browning's Christmas Day letter, such as it was, as briefly as she can today before moving on to a more comfortable subject--poetry:

"Saturday.

Yes indeed, I have 'observed that way in' you, & not once,
& not twice, & not twenty times, but oftener than any, .. & almost
every time .. do you know, .. with an uncomfortable feeling from the reflection
that that is the way for making all sorts of mistakes dependent on &
issuing in exaggeration. It is the very way!—the highway–"

Yes, we all notice that Browning takes one bit of a subject, pins it to his mat, and dissects it until it is tortured. As he does in life he does in poetry. And she makes a light and obvious observation that such dissections magnify and exaggerate faults.

"For what you say in the letter here otherwise, I do not deny the
truth .. as partial truth:—I was speaking generally quite. Admit that I am not
apt to be extravagant in my ‘esprit de sexe’: the Martineau doctrine of
intellectual equality &c, I gave them up, you remember, like a woman—most
disgracefully, as Mrs Jameson would tell me. But we are not on that ground
now—we are on ground worth holding a brief for!—& when women fail
here .. it is not so much our fault. Which was all I meant to say from
the beginning."

I do not necessarily agree with her that women are the intellectual inferior of men, but suspect that she threw that in to soften her rhetoric. At that time especially, women were not given the educational opportunities of men. However, I do agree with her in the point she was trying to make about women in their relation with men: Women were and are held to a different and higher standard than men in affairs of the heart. Men can be permitted changes of heart, shall we say, at any stage of a relationship and any change might actually be blamed on the woman, whereas a woman must always be constant and is given very little leeway, except in cases of extreme provocation. Less so today where almost anything goes for both parties, although women are still often blamed, and often blame themselves when men behave badly. Browning does not see this weakness in men because he is a gentleman and so he expects honourable behavior in all men. Miss Barrett wins this argument, but not with a knock out--strictly on points. She does not even bother to scold or teaze him too harshly. She probably realizes he was drunk or 'out of sorts' when he wrote his letter.

So, she turns to his poetry, where she points out that he gets it right:

"It reminds me of the exquisite analysis in your Luria, this third
act, of the worth of a woman’s sympathy,—indeed of the exquisite double-analysis
of unlearned & learned sympathies. Nothing could be better, I think, than
this, .....

except the characterizing of the ‘learned praise,’ which comes afterwards in its fine subtle
truth. What would those critics do to you, to what degree undo you, who would
deprive you of the exercise of the discriminative faculty of the
metaphysicians? As if a poet could be great without it! They might as well
recommend a watchmaker to deal only in faces, in dials, & not to meddle with
the wheels inside! You should tell Mr Forster so–"

The implicit message here is: Browning is better reflected in his poetry than his letter of December 25th. Yes, she has a very light touch.

And speaking of ‘Luria,’ which grows on me the more I read, ..
how fine he is when the doubt breaks on him—I mean, where he begins .. ‘why
then, all is very well’. It is most affecting,
I think, all that process of doubt—& that reference to the friends at home
(which at once proves him a stranger, & intimates, by just a stroke, that he
will not look home for comfort out of the new foreign treason) is managed by you
with singular dramatic dexterity ....

‘so slight, so slight

And yet it tells you they are dead & gone’!–
And then, the direct approach ..

‘You now, so kind here, all you Florentines,

What is it in your eyes?––'

Do you not feel it to be success, .. ‘you now’? I
do, from my low ground as reader. The whole breaking round him of the cloud,
& the manner in which he stands, facing it, .. I admire it all
thoroughly. Braccio’s vindication of Florence strikes me as almost too
poetically subtle for the man—but nobody could have the heart to wish a
line of it away—that would be too much for critical virtue!–

I had your letter yesterday morning early. The postoffice people
were so resolved on keeping their Christmas, that they would not let me keep
mine– No post all day, after that general post before noon, which never brings
me anything worth the breaking of a seal.

Am I to see you on monday? If there should be the least, least
crossing of that day, .. anything to do, anything to see, anything to listen
to—remember how tuesday stands close by, & that another monday comes on the
following week. Now I need not say that every time, & you will please
to remember it—Eccellenza!–

May God bless you–

Your EBB–

From the New Monthly Magazine, 'The admirers of Robert
Browning’s poetry, & they are now very numerous, will be glad to hear of the
issue by Mr Moxon of a seventh series of the renowned Bells &
delicious Pomegranates, under the title of Dramatic Romances & Lyrics.' "

How lightly she disposes of his rotten letter and turns him around to his higher--and she would probably say truer self. He writes today as well, quite briefly:

"Saturday 4.p.m.

I was forced to leave off abruptly on Christmas morning—and now I
have but a few minutes before our inexorable post leaves: I hoped to return from
Town earlier. But I can say something—and Monday will make amends. 'Forever' and
forever I do love you, dearest—love you with my whole heart—in life, in
death–

___________________________________________________________

Yes,—I did go to Mr Kenyon’s—who had a little to forgive in my
slack justice to his good dinner—but was for the rest, his own kind self—and I
went, also, to Moxon’s—who said something about my number’s going off 'rather
heavily'—so let it!"

Still too hung over to enjoy his dinner at Kenyon's.

"—Too good, too, too indulgent you are, my own Ba, to
'acts' first or last; but all the same, I am glad and encouraged. Let me
get done with these, and better things will follow–

Now, bless you, ever my sweetest—I have you ever in my thoughts–
And on Monday, remember, I am to see you–

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

My dear Christmas gift of a letter! I will write back a few
lines—(all I can, having to go out now)—just that I may forever .. certainly
during our mortal 'forever'—mix my love for you, and, as you suffer me to say,
your love for me .. dearest! .. these shall be mixed with the other loves of the
day and live therein,—as I write, and trust, and know— forever! While I live I
will remember what was my feeling in reading, and in writing, and in stopping
from either .. as I have just done .. to kiss you and bless you with my whole
heart– Yes, yes, bless you, my own!

_________

All is right, all of your letter .. admirably right and just in
the defence of the women I seemed to speak against; and only
seemed—because that is a way of mine which you must have observed,—that foolish
concentrating of thought and feeling, for a moment, on some one little spot of a
character or anything else indeed, and, in the attempt to do justice and develop
whatever may seem ordinarily to be overlooked in it,—that over vehement
insisting on, and giving an undue prominence to, the same—which has the
effect of taking away from the importance of the rest of the related objects
which, in truth, are not considered at all .. or they would also rise
proportionally when subjected to the same (.. that is, correspondingly magnified
and dilated ..) light and concentrated feeling; so, you remember, the old
divine, preaching on 'small sins,' in his zeal to expose the tendencies &
consequences usually made little account of, was led to maintain the said small
sins to be 'greater than great ones.'But then .. if you look on the
world altogether, and accept the small natures, in their usual
proportion, with the greater .. things do not look quite so bad; because,
the conduct which is atrocious in those higher cases, of proposal and
acceptance, may be no more than the claims of the occasion justify—(wait
and hear!)—in certain other cases where the thing sought for and granted is
avowedly less by a million degrees; it shall all be traffic, exchange-"

I have to stop him right here. Yes, I did notice that he did have this "foolish concentrating of thought and feeling" and so did everyone else and that is why no one likes his poetry. Just sayin'. But I had to pause here in mid-sentence to ask: What kind of Christmas letter is this? Has he been in the egg-nog? Out all night with the boys? He is just crazy out of control here. But let us go on or we may never make it to New Years.

"(counting
spiritual gifts as only coin, for our purpose)—but surely the formalities and
policies and decencies all vary with the nature of the thing trafficked for—a
man makes up his mind during half his life to acquire a Pitt-diamond or a
Pilgrim-pearl—and gets witnesses and testimony and so
forth—but, surely, when I pass a shop where oranges are ticketed up seven for
six pence I offend no law by sparing all words and putting down the piece with a
certain authoritative ring on the counter: If instead of diamonds you
want—(being a king or queen)—provinces with live men on them .. there is so much
more diplomacy required,—new interests are appealed to .. high motives
supposed, at all events—whereas, when, in Naples, a man asks leave to
black your shoe in the dusty street 'purely for the honor of serving your
Excellency' you laugh and would be sorry to find yourself without a 'grano' or
two—(six of which, about, make a farthing)– Now, do you not see? Where so little
is to be got, why offer much more? If a man knows that .. but I am teaching you!All I mean is, that, in Benedick’s phrase, 'the world must go on'– He who honestly wants his wife to sit at
the head of his table and carve .. that is be his help-meat (not 'help
mete for him')—he shall assuredly find a girl of his degree who wants the
table to sit at,—and some dear friend to mortify, who would be glad of
such a piece of fortune—and if that man offers that woman a bunch of
orange-flowers and a sonnet, instead of a buck-horn-handled sabre-shaped knife,
sheathed in an 'Every Lady Her Own Market-Woman, Being a Table of' &c &c
then, I say, he is——.

Well, Merry Christmas to you Mr. Browning. I am not at all sure that he himself knew where he was going with this. Thank heaven the clock struck. Essentially: men act the way they do to get the woman they want. From this I gather that if a man acts like a pig he will get a pig. But that is not true. A man will act like a gentleman to get a lady and be masking his true pig nature. And as for him 'teaching' Miss Barrett. No. He was lecturing but he was not teaching. Letter grade F. Now go sleep it off Mr. Browning and try again when you have sobered up.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Now, 'ought' you to be 'sorry you sent that letter,' which
made, & makes me so happy—so happy—can you bring yourself to turn round and
tell one you have so blessed with your bounty that there was a mistake, and you
meant only half that largess? If you are not sensible that you do make me
most happy by such letters, and do not warm in the reflection of your own rays,
then I do give up indeed the last chance of procuring you
happiness; My own 'ought,' which
you object to, shall be withdrawn—being only a pure bit of selfishness,—I felt,
in missing the letter of yours, next day, that I might have drawn it down
by one of mine,—if I had begged never so gently, the gold would have
fallen—there was my omitted duty to myself which you properly blame– I
should stand silently and wait and be sure of the ever-remembering goodness.

Let me count my gold now—and rub off any speck that stays the
full shining. First—that thought .. I told you,—I pray you, pray you,
sweet—never that again—or what leads, never so remotely or indirectly to it! On
your own fancied ground—the fulfilment would be of necessity fraught with
every woe that can fall in this life. I am yours for ever—if you are not
here, with me—what then? Say, you take all of yourself away but—just
enough to live on,—then, that defeats every kind purpose .. as if you cut
away all the ground from my feet but so much as serves for bare standing room ..
why still, I stand there—and is it the better that I have no broader
space, when off that you cannot force me? I have your memory, the
knowledge of you, the idea of you printed into my heart and brain,—on that, I
can live my life—but it is for you, the dear, utterly generous creature I know
you, to give me more and more beyond mere life—to extend life and deepen it—as
you do, and will do. Oh, how I love you when I think of the entire
truthfulness of your generosity to me—how, meaning, and willing to give,
you gave nobly! Do you think I have not seen in this world how women who
do love will manage to confer that gift on occasion? And shall I allow
myself to fancy how much alloy such pure gold as your love would have
rendered endurable?– Yet it came, virgin ore, to complete my fortune! And what
but this makes me confident and happy?Can I take a lesson by your
fancies, and begin frightening myself with saying .. 'but if she saw all the
world—the worthier, better men there .. those who would' &c &c? No, I
think of the great, dear gift that it was,—how I 'won'nothing (the hateful word, and French thought)—did
nothing by my own arts or cleverness in the matter .. so what pretence have the
more artful or more clever for—but I cannot write out this folly– I am
yours for ever, with the utmost sense of gratitude—to say I would give you my
life joyfully is little .. I would, I hope, do that for two or three other
people—but I am not conscious of any imaginable point in which I would not
implicitly devote my whole self to you—be disposed of by you as for the best.
There! It is not to be spoken of—let me live it into proof, beloved!"He has the same misgivings about his worthiness as she does about her own, but he accepts the possibility of failure in the face of the known quantity of the love he feels. He makes a good point: she may find later that he is not her ideal as he may find with her. The unspoken point being: why throw it all away without even trying when the great and good may well out weigh the bad. "Let me live it into proof."

"And for 'disappointment and a burthen' .. now—let us get quite
away from ourselves, and not see one of the filaments, but only the cords
of love with the world’s horny eye– Have we such jarring tastes, then? Does your
inordinate attachment to gay life interfere with my deep passion for society?
'Have they common sympathy in each other’s pursuits'—always asks Mrs
Tomkins! Well, here was I when you knew me, fixed in
my way of life, meaning with God’s help to write what may be written and so die
at peace with myself so far– Can you help me or no? Do you not help me so
much that, if you saw the more likely peril for poor human nature, you would
say, 'He will be jealous of all the help coming from me—none from him to
me!'—and that would be a consequence of the help, all-too-great for hope
of return, with any one less possessed than I with the exquisiteness of being
transcended and the blest one."

Ah, "the exquisiteness of being transcended..." He was meant for her. Imagine these words having meaning for anyone else on earth.

"But—'here comes the Silah and the voice is hushed'–I will speak of other things: when we are
together one day—the days I believe in– I mean to set about that reconsidering
'Sordello'—it has always been rather on my mind—but
yesterday I was reading the 'Purgatorio' and the first speech of the group of
which Sordello makes one, struck me with a new significance, as well describing
the man and his purpose and fate in my own poem—see,—one of the burthened,
contorted souls tell Virgil & Dante,

Noi fummo già tutti per forza morti,

E peccatori infin’ all’ ultim’ ora:

Quivi—lume del ciel ne fece
accorti;

Si chè, pentendo e perdonando, fora

Di vita uscimmo a Dio pacificati

Che del disio di se veder n’accora.

Which is just my Sordello’s story .. could I 'do' it off
hand, I wonder.

And sinners were we to the extreme hour;

Then, light from heaven fell, making us aware,

So that, repenting us and pardoned, out

Of life we passed to God, at peace with Him

Who fills the heart with yearning Him to see–

There were many singular incidents attending my work on that
subject—thus, quite at the end, I found out there was printed and
not published, a little historical tract by a Count V—something, called
'Sordello'—with the motto “Post fata resurgam [I shall rise again]'! 'I hope he prophecied'– The main
of this—biographical notices—is extracted by Muratori—(I
think). Last year when I set foot in Naples I found after a few minutes that at
some theatre, that night, the opera was to be 'one act of Sordello'—and I never looked twice, nor expended a
couple of carlines on the libretto!"

He is being haunted by 'Sordello' and yet he never does re attend 'Sordello'. Life intervened.

"I wanted to tell you, in my last letter, that when I spoke of
people’s tempers you have no concern with 'people.' I do not glance
obliquely at your temper—either to discover it, or praise it, or adapt
myself to it– I speak of the relation one sees in other cases—how one opposes
passionate foolish people, but hates cold clever people who take quite care
enough of themselves: I myself am born supremely passionate—so I was born with
light yellow hair—all changes; that is the passion changes its direction and,
taking a channel large enough, looks calmer, perhaps, than it should—and all my
sympathies go with quiet strength of course—but I know what the other kind is.
As for the breakages of chairs, and the appreciation of Parisian
meubles,—manibus, pedibusque
descendo in tuam sententiam, Ba, mî ocelle! [I acquiese completely to your opinion, Ba, my little eye.]
('What was E.B.C?' why, the first
letter after, and not E.B.B, my own B! There was no latent meaning in the
C—but I had no inclination to go on to D,
or E, for instance!) And so, love, Tuesday is to be our day—one day more—and
then!. And meanwhile 'care'for me! a good word for you—but
my care, what is that! One day I aspire to care, though! I shall
not go away at any dear Mr K.’s coming! They call me down-stairs to supper—and
my fire is out, and you keep me from feeling cold and yet ask if I am well? Yes,
well—yes, happy—and your own ever– I must bid God bless you—dearest! RB"

Browning sees himself as passionate. I would never have guessed that. He only appears calm because his passion in spread in a wide channel. Wonderful. And to prove his passion he boldly asserts that he, "shall not go away at any dear Mr. K's. coming!" No, of course he won't. (How many times does he do that? I have lost count.)

Miss Barrett now provides a letter the length of a novella (well, I do exaggerate a bit):

"Sunday night.

But did I ‘dispute’? Surely not. Surely I believe in you & in
‘mysteries.’ Surely I prefer the no-reason to ever so much rationalism ..
(rationalism & infidelity go together they say!). All which I may do, &
be afraid sometimes notwithstanding—& when you overpraise me (not
overlove) I must be frightened as I told you.

It is with me as with the theologians. I believe in you & can
be happy & safe so: but when my ‘personal merits’ come into question
in any way, even the least, .. why then the position grows untenable:—it is no
more ‘of grace’."

Hmm..Browning as a Christ like figure..and she is only worthy via grace...perhaps mildly blasphemous, but as a simple analogy quite apt.

"Do I teaze you? as I teaze myself sometimes? But do not wrong me
in turn! Do not keep repeating that ‘after long years’ I shall know you—know
you!—as if I did not without the years. If you are forced to refer me to those
long years, I must deserve the thistles besides. The thistles are the
corollary."

She has already had the thistles, let her jump to the chase.

"For it is obvious .. manifest .. that I cannot doubt of you—that
I may doubt of myself, of happiness, of the whole world, .. but of you .. not: it is obvious that if I could doubt of you
& act so I should be a very idiot, or worse indeed. And you ..
you think I doubt of you whenever I make an interjection!—now do you not? And is
it reasonable?– Of you, I mean?

Monday/ For my part, you must admit it to be too possible
that you may be, as I say, ‘disappointed’ in me—it is too possible. And
if it does no good to say so, even now perhaps .. if it is mere weakness to say
so & simply torments you, why do you be magnanimous & forgive
that .. let it pass as a weakness & forgive it so. Often I
think painful things which I do not tell you & ........

While I write, your letter
comes. Kindest of you it was, to write me such a letter, when I expected
scarcely the shadow of one!—this makes up for the other letter which I expected
unreasonably & which you ‘ought not’ to have written, as was proved
afterwards– And now why should I go on with that sentence? What had I to say of
'painful things,' I wonder? All the painful things seem gone .. vanished—I
forget what I had to say– Only do you still think of this, dearest beloved,—that
I sit here in the dark but for you, & that the light you bring me
(from my fault!—from the nature of my darkness!) is not a settled
light as when you open the shutters in the morning, but a light made by candles
which burn some of them longer & some shorter, & some brighter &
briefer, both at once, being ‘double-wicks’, & that there is an intermission
for a moment now & then between the dropping of the old light into the
socket & the lighting of the new– Every letter of yours is a new light which
burns so many hours .. & then!– I am morbid, you see—or call it by
what name you like .. too wise or too foolish. 'If the light of the body is
darkness, how great is that darkness.' Yet
even when I grow too wise, I admit always that while you love me it is an answer
to all. And I am never so much too foolish as to wish to be worthier for my own
sake—only for yours!—not for my own sake, since I am content to owe all things
to you."

She may be morbid, but she certainly knows herself. Her analogy of the light that comes and goes is perfect.

"And it could be so much to you to lose me!,—& you say
so,—& then think it needful to tell me not to
think the other thought.!! As if that were possible! Do you remember what
you said once of the flowers .. that you ‘felt a respect for them when they had
passed out of your hands’? and must it not be so with my life, which if you
choose to have it, must be respected too? Much more with my life!– Also, see
that I, who had my warmest affections on the other side of the grave, feel that
it is otherwise with me now—quite otherwise. I did not like it at first to be so
much otherwise. And I could not have had any such thought through a weariness of
life or any of my old motives, but simply to escape the ‘risk’ I told you of.
Should I have said to you instead of it .. 'Love me for ever'?—— Well then, .. I do–"

"Love me forever" is the (ironic) refrain from Browning's just published poem "Earth's Immortalities". But she said it! Kind of. She used the word 'love'. It is a quote and she is laughing at him, but she essentially said she loved him. She is progressing.

"As to my ‘helping’ you, my help is in your fancy,—& if you go
on with the fancy, I perfectly understand that it will be as good as deeds. We
have sympathy too—we walk one way—oh, I do not forget the advantages.
Only Mrs Tomkins’s ideas of happiness are below my ambition for you——
So often as I have said, (it reminds me) that in this situation I
should be more exacting than any other woman—so often I have said it!—& so
different everything is from what I thought it would be! Because if I am
exacting it is for you & not for me—it is altogether for
you—you understand that, dearest of all .. it is for youwholly. It never crosses my thought, in a
lightning even, the question whether I may be happy so & so—I. It is
the other question which comes always—too often for peace.

People used to say to me, 'You expect too much—you are too
romantic'– And my answer always was that 'I could not expect too much when I
expected nothing at all' .. which was the truth—for I never thought (& how
often I have said that!) I never thought that anyone whom I could love, would stoop to love me .. the two things seemed clearly incompatible to my
understanding.

And now when it comes in a miracle, you wonder at me for looking
twice, thrice, four times, to see if it comes through ivory or horn– You wonder that it should seem to me at
first all illusion—illusion for you, .. illusion for me as a consequence. But
how natural–.

It is true of me .. very true .. that I have not a high
appreciation of what passes in the world (& not merely the Tomkins-world!)
under the name of love, & that a distrust of the thing had grown to be a
habit of mind with me when I knew you first. It has appeared to me, through all
the seclusion of my life & the narrow experience it admitted of, that in
nothing, men .. & women too!, .. were so apt to mistake their own feelings,
as in this one thing. Putting falseness quite on one side, .. quite out
of sight & consideration, .. an honest mistaking of feeling appears
wonderfully common—& no mistake has such frightful results—none can.
Selflove & generosity, a mistake may come from either—from pity, from
admiration, from any blind impulse——oh, when I look at the histories of my own
female friends .. to go no step further!– And if it is true of the women,
what must the other side be? To see the marriages which are made everyday! worse
than solitudes & more desolate! In the case of the two happiest I ever knew,
one of the husbands said in confidence to a brother of mine—not much in
confidence or I should not have heard it, but in a sort of smoking frankness, ..
that he had 'ruined his prospects by marrying,'—& the other said to myself
at the very moment of professing an extraordinary happiness, … 'But I should
have done as well if I had not married her.'

Then for the falseness——the first time I ever, in my own
experience, heard that word which rhymes to glove & comes as easily off
& on, (on some hands!) .. it was from a man
of whose attentions to another woman I was at that time her confidante. I
was bound so to silence for her sake, that I could not even speak the scorn that
was in me—and in fact my uppermost feeling was a sort of horror .. a terror—for
I was very young then, & the world did, at the moment, look ghastly!"Not many happy endings does she have to report. Perhaps she needs to get out more.

The falseness & the calculations!—why how can you who are
just, blame women .. when you must know what
the 'system' of men is towards them,—& of men not ungenerous otherwise? Why
are women to be blamed if they act as if they had to do with swindlers?—is it
not the mere instinct of preservation which makes them do it? Men make women
what they are. And your ‘honorable men’, the most loyal of them, .. (for
instance) .. is it not a rule with them (unless when taken unaware through a
want of selfgovernment) to force a woman (trying all means) to force a woman to
stand committed in her affections .. (they with their feet lifted all the time
to trample on her for want of delicacy—) before they risk the pin-prick
to their own personal pitiful vanities? Oh—to see how these things are set about
by men! to see how a man carefully holding up on each side the skirts of
an embroidered vanity to keep it quite safe from the wet, will contrive to tell
you in so many words that he … might love you if the sun shone! And women are to
be blamed!– Why there are, to be sure, cold & heartless, light &
changeable, ungenerous & calculating women in the world!—that is sure. But
for the most part, they are only what they are made—& far better than the
nature of the making .. of that I am confident. The loyal make the loyal, the
disloyal the disloyal. And I give no more discredit to those women you speak of,
than I myself can take any credit in this thing—I– Because who could be disloyal
with you .. with whatever corrupt inclination?
You, who are the noblest of all? If you judge me so, .. it is my
privilege rather than my merit .. as I feel of myself."

She went on a little rant there didn't she? She makes good points however, the books were cooked in favor of the men. Their peccadillo's could be forgiven, overlook and even found amusing, but for a woman to step out of the social norms of the time was dangerous indeed.

"Wednesday/ All but the last few lines of all this was
written before I saw you yesterday, ever dearest—& since, I have been
reading your third act which is perfectly noble & worthy of you both in the
conception & expression, & carries the reader on triumphantly .. to
speak for one reader. It seems to me too that the language is freer—there is
less inversion & more breadth of rhythm. It just strikes me so for the first
impression: At any rate the interest grows & grows. You have a secret about
Domizia, I guess—which will not be told till the last perhaps. And that poor,
noble Luria, who will be equal to the leap .. as it is easy to see. It is full,
altogether, of magnanimities:—noble,—& nobly put. I will go on with my
notes, or those, you shall have at once .. I mean together .. presently. And dont hurry & chafe yourself for
the fourth act—now that you are better! To be ill again—think what that would
be!– Luria will be great now whatever you do—or whatever you do not.
Will he not?

And never, never for a moment (I quite forgot to tell you) did I
fancy that you were talking at me in the temper-observations—never. It
was the most unprovoked egotism, all that I told you of my temper,—for certainly
I never suspected you of asking questions so. I was simply amused a little by
what you said, & thought to myself (if you will know my thoughts on
that serious subject) that you had probably lived among very goodtempered
persons, to hold such an opinion about the innocuousness of illtemper. It was
all I thought, indeed. Now to fancy that I was capable of suspecting you of such
a maneuvre!—— Why you would have asked me directly,—if you had wished
‘curiously to enquire.’ "I don't think he would have asked her directly. They are both rather shy in the asking and telling department.

"An excellent solemn chiming, the passage from Dante makes with
your Sordello—and the Sordello deserves the labour which it needs, to
make it appear the great work it is. I think that the principle of association
is too subtly in movement throughout it—so that while you are going
straightforward you go at the same time round & round, until the progress
involved in the motion is lost sight of by the lookers on. Or did I tell you
that before?

You have heard, I suppose, how Dickens’s ‘Cricket’ sells by
nineteen thousand copies at a time, though he takes Michael Angelo to be ‘a
humbug’ .. or for 'though' read 'because'. Tell
me of Mr Kenyon’s dinner. And Moxon?

Is not this an infinite letter? I shall hear from you I hope .. I
ask you to let me hear soon. I write all sorts of things to you, rightly
& wrongly perhaps—when wrongly, forgive it. I think of you always– May God
bless you. 'Love me for ever,' as

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Let's begin with Miss Barrett's response to Browning's letter of the 19th--she had teazed him about not writing to her but now takes it back with a truism understood by all purveyors of teaze: if she had meant it she would not have written it.

"Saturday.

I have your letter now, & now I am sorry I sent mine. If I
wrote that you had 'forgotten to write,' I did not mean it,—not a word! If I had
meant it I should not have written it. But it would have been better for every
reason to have waited just a little longer before writing at all. A besetting
sin of mine is an impatience which makes people laugh when it does not entangle
their silks, pull their knots tighter, & tear their books in cutting them
open.

How right you are about Mr Lowell!– He has a refined fancy &
is graceful for an American critic, but the truth is, otherwise, that he knows
nothing of English poetry or the next thing to nothing, & has merely had a
dream of the early dramatists. The amount of his reading in that direction is an
article in the Retrospective Review which contains extracts,—& he re-extracts the extracts,
re-quotes the quotations, &, ‘a pede Herculem [from the foot of Hercules],’ from
the foot infers the man, or rather from the sandal-string of the foot, infers
& judges the soul of the man—it is comparative anatomy under the most
speculative conditions. How a writer of his talents & pretentions could make
up his mind to make up a book on such slight substratum, is a curious proof of
the state of literature in America. Do you not think so? Why a lecturer on the
English Dramatists for a 'Young Ladies’ Academy' here in England, might take it
to be necessary to have better information than he could gather from an odd
volume of an old review! And then, Mr Lowell’s naïveté in showing his authority,
.. as if the Elizabethan poets lay mouldering in inaccessible manuscript
somewhere below the lowest deep of Shakespeare’s grave, .. is curious beyond the
rest!– Altogether, the fact is an epigram on the surface-literature of America.
As you say, their books do not suit us:—Mrs Markham might as well send her
compendium of the History of France to M. Thiers– If
they knew more, they could not give parseley crowns to their own native
poets, when there is greater merit among the rabbits. Mrs Sigourney has just
sent me, .. just this morning .. her 'Scenes in my native land'—&, peeping between the uncut leaves, I
read of the poet Hillhouse, of 'sublime spirit
& Miltonic energy,' standing in 'the temple of Fame' as if it were built on
purpose for him!– I suppose he is like most of the American poets .. who are
shadows of the true .. as flat as a shadow, as colourless as a shadow, as
lifeless & as transitory. Mr Lowell himself is, in his verse-books,
poetical, if not a poet—& certainly this little book we are talking of, is
graceful enough in some ways—you would call it a pretty book—would you
not? Two or three letters I have had from him .. all very kind!—&
that reminds me, alas! of some ineffable ingratitude on my own part! When
one’s conscience grows too heavy, there is nothing for it but to throw it
away!——"

Miss Barrett is hard on the Americans today. I do not take exception to her comments, what do I know? But methinks her comments are true today of any and all: people do not study things to know, they read extracts of extracts and assume 'knowledge'. You can tell this from reading almost any biography of the Browning's. My advise: go to the primary material and read, don't rely on the biographies-or just rely on them as a starting place.

"Do you remember how I tried to tell you what he said of you,
& how you would not let me?

Mr Mathews said of him .. having met him once in society,
.. that he was the concentration of conceit in appearance & manner. But
since then, they seem to be on better terms.

Where is the meaning, pray, of EBC?—your meaning, I
mean.?

My true initials are EBMB—my long name, as opposed to my
short one, being … Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett!—there’s a full length to take away one’s
breath!– Christian name .. Elizabeth Barrett:—surname, Moulton Barrett. So long
it is, that to make it portable, I fell into the habit of doubling it up &
packing it closely, .. & of forgetting that I was a Moulton,
altogether. One might as well write the alphabet as all four initials. Yet our
family-name is Moulton Barrett, & my brothers reproach me sometimes
for sacrificing the governorship of an old town in Norfolk with a little
honorable verdigris from the Heralds’ Office– As if I cared for the
Retrospective Review! Nevertheless it is
true that I would give ten towns in Norfolk (if I had them) to own some purer
lineage than that of the blood of the slave!– Cursed we are from generation to
generation!– I seem to hear the ‘Commination service’.

May God bless you always, always!—beyond the always of this
world!——

Your EBB—

Mr Dickens’s ‘Cricket’ sings repetitions, &, with
considerable beauty, is extravagant– It does not appear to me by any means one
of his most successful productions, though quite free from what was reproached
as bitterness & one-sidedness, last year.

___________________________________________________________

You do not say how you are—not a word!– And you are wrong in
saying that you 'ought to have written'—as if 'ought' could be in place
so! You never ‘ought’ to write to me, you know! or
rather .. if you ever think you ought, you ought not! Which is a speaking of
mysteries on my part!"

I took it upon myself to look at the original letter as filmed on the Baylor website and it seems to me that Miss Barrett had rather shaky penmanship today. The letter itself seems fine as far as content goes, certainly it does not contain her usual morbidity. Hmmm...perhaps she was simply not feeling well or was in need of her laudanum.

Browning writes responding to her letter of December 18 wherein she had written that she would rather die now than disappoint him later:

"Saturday.

I do not, nor will not think, dearest, of ever 'making you
happy'– I can imagine no way of working to that end, which does not go straight
to my own truest, only true happiness: yet in every such effort there is implied
some distinction, some supererogatory grace, or why speak of it at all?
You it is, are my happiness, and all that ever can be: you—dearest!

But never, if you would not .. what you will not do, I know ..
never revert to that frightful wish—'Disappoint me?' 'I speak what I know
and testify what I have seen'—you shall say
'mystery' again & again—I do not dispute that—but do not you dispute,
neither, that mysteries are: but it is simply because I do most justice
to the mystical part of what I feel for you, because I consent to lay most
stress on that fact of facts that I love you, beyond admiration, and respect,
and esteem and affection, even—and do not adduce any reason which stops short of
accounting for that, whatever else it would account for .. because I do
this, in pure logical justice—you are able to turn and wonder (.. if you
do .. now) what causes it all! My love, only wait, only believe in
me—and it cannot be but I shall, little by little, become known to you—after
long years perhaps, but still one day. I would say this now—but I
will write more to-morrow– God bless my sweetest—ever, love, I am your RB

Wonderful strategy that he did not berate her for saying that she would rather die than disappoint, he just refers to it as 'frightful'; he simply reiterates that he loves her and allows for miracles. And she was worried about teazing him about not writing.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

I ought to have written yesterday—so to-day when I need a letter
and get none, there is my own fault besides, and the less consolation– A letter
from you would light up this sad day: shall I fancy how, if a letter lay
there, where I look,—rain might fall and winds blow while I listened to
you, long after the words had been laid to heart? But here you are—in
your place—with me who am your own—your own—and so the rhyme joins on,

—She shall speak to me in places lone

With a low and holy tone.

Ay! when I have lit my lamp at night

She shall be present with my sprite:

And I will say, whate’er it be,

Every word she telleth me!

Now, is that taken from your book? No—but from my book,
which holds my verses as I write them; and as I open it, I read that–"

Browning quotes one of Miss Barrett's poems, 'The Past', which he had written in his own writing portfolio. "They appear inside the cover of his embossed writing portfolio, enclosed within
an intricately sketched boxed border and framed by Hebrew, Latin, and Italian
inscriptions (leading some to assume that the lines were by RB himself and to
publish them under his name).
On the facing page of the portfolio appears a printed copy— with the first line
in ornate script— of 'How do I love thee,' signed 'E.B. Browning. Above the quotation thus framed appears a Hebrew inscription, 'The possession
eternal.' Below it RB wrote a Latin inscription from Virgil’s Aeneid (4.83):
'absens absentum auditque videtque' ('absent [she] both hears and sees [him]
absent'). Beneath the Latin inscription in turn, in large, ornate, framed
script, appears the Italian phrase, 'ALLA GIORNATA,' which literally means 'to
the day,' but is used idiomatically in a commemorative sense (as in 'Here’s to
the day we met' or 'to the day we will meet again'), and also to imply that one
must live by the day or accept life as it comes. On the same cover of RB’s
writing portfolio (though turned upside down) appears an allegorical sketch,
evidently of the 'figure of the locust, with the face of a man and the crown
upon its head,' from Revelation 9.7." This extended quote is from EBBArchive.org.

"And speaking of verse—somebody gave me a few days ago that Mr
Lowell’s book you once mentioned to me:
anyone who 'admires' you shall have my sympathy at once—even though he
do change the laughing wine-mark into a 'stain' in that perfectly
beautiful triplet—nor am I to be indifferent to his good word for myself (—tho’
not very happily connected with the criticism on the epithet in that 'Yorkshire
Tragedy' (which has better things, by the
way)—seeing that 'white boy,' in old language, meant just 'good boy,' a general
epithet—as Johnson notices in the life of Dryden—whom the schoolmaster Busby was used to class with his 'white boys' ..
this is hypercriticism, however)– But these American books should not be
reprinted here—one asks, what and where is the class to which they address
themselves? for, no doubt, we have our congregations of ignoramuses that enjoy
the profoundest ignorance imaginable on the subjects treated of—but these
are evidently not the audience Mr Lowell reckons on, .. rather,—if one may trust
the manner of his setting to work,—he would propound his doctrine to the class
always to be found, of spirits instructed up to a certain height and there
resting—vines that run up a prop and there tangle and grow to a knot—which want
supplying with fresh poles; so the provident man brings his bundle into the
grounds, and sticks them in laterally or a-top of the others, as the case
requires, and all the old stocks go on growing again—but here, with us, whoever
wanted Chaucer, or Chapman, or Ford, got him long ago—what else have
Lamb, & Coleridge, & Hazlitt & Hunt and so on to the end of their
generation .. what else been doing this many a year? What one passage of all
these, cited with the very air of a Columbus, but has been known to all who know
anything of poetry this many, many a year? The others, who don’t know anything,
are the stocks that have got to shoot, not climb higher—compost,
they want in the first place! Ford’s & Crashaw’s rival nightingales—why they have been dissertated on by
Wordsworth & Coleridge—then by Lamb & Hazlitt—then worked to death by
Hunt, who printed them entire and quoted them to pieces again, in every
periodical he was ever engaged upon—and yet after all, here 'Philip'—'must read'
(out of a roll of dropping papers with yellow ink tracings, so old!) something
at which 'John' claps his hands and says 'Really—that these ancients should own
so much wit' &c! The passage no longer looks its fresh self after
this veritable passage from hand to hand: as when, in old dances, the belle
began the figure with her own partner, and by him was transferred to the next,
and so to the next—they ever beginning with all the old alacrity
and spirit,—but she bearing a still-accumulating weight of tokens of galantry,
and none the better for every fresh pushing and shoving and pulling and
hauling—till, at the bottom of the room …

To which Mr Lowell might say, that—No, I will say the true thing
against myself .. and it is, that—when I turn from what is in my mind and
determine to write about anybody’s book to avoid writing that I love & love
& love again my own, dearest love—because of the cuckoo-song of it,—then, I shall be in no better
humour with that book than with Mr Lowell’s!"

Ok, stop right there. I feel a sonnet coming on:

XXI

Say over again, and yet once over again,That thou dost love me. Though the word repeatedShould seem a “cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it,Remember, never to the hill or plain,Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strainComes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.Belovëd, I, amid the darkness greetedBy a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s painCry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who can fearToo many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—tollThe silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,To love me also in silence with thy soul.

"(But I have a new thing to say or sing—you never before
heard me love and bless and send my heart after .. 'Ba'—did you?) Ba .. and
that is you! I tried (—more
than wanted—) to call you that, on Wednesday! I have a flower
here—rather, a star, a mimosa, which must be turned and turned, the side to the
light changing in a little time to the leafy side, where all the fans
lean and spread .. so I turn your name to me, that side I have not last seen:
you cannot tell how I feel glad that you will not part with the
name—Barrett—seeing you have two of the same—and must always, moreover, remain
my EBB!

Dearest 'E.B.C'—no, no! and so it will
never be!"

Stop again, I feel another sonnet coming on:

XXXIII

Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hearThe name I used to run at, when a child,From innocent play, and leave the cowslips plied,To glance up in some face that proved me dearWith the look of its eyes. I miss the clearFond voices which, being drawn and reconciledInto the music of Heaven’s undefiled,Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,While I call God—call God!—so let thy mouthBe heir to those who are now exanimate.Gather the north flowers to complete the south,And catch the early love up in the late.Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,With the same heart, will answer and not wait.

"Have you seen Mr Kenyon? I did not write .. knowing that such a
procedure would draw the kind sure letter in return, with the invitation &c,
as if I had asked for it! I had perhaps better call on him some morning very
early–

Bless you, my own sweetest. You will write to me, I know in my
heart! Ever may God bless you!

RB"

For an idle woman she is certainly busy writing sonnet after sonnet. We often and often hear the word 'muse' used but surely this is a true example of a man as a muse. Browning brought forth the inspiration for the sonnets, Miss Barrett had the talent.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Miss Barrett writes a lovely teazing letter to Mr. Browning on this Thursday after their visit the previous day:

"Thursday evening.

Dearest you know how to say what makes me happiest, you who never
think, you say, of making me happy! For my part I do not think of it either– I
simply understand that you are my happiness, & that therefore you
could not make another happiness for me, such as would be worth having—not even
you! Why, how could you?– That was in my mind to speak yesterday,
but I could not speak it—to write it, is easier.

Talking of happiness, .. shall I tell you? Promise not to be
angry & I will tell you. I have thought sometimes that, if I considered
myself wholly, I should choose to die this winter .. now .. before I had
disappointed you in anything. But because you are better & dearer & more
to be considered than I, I do not choose it. I cannotchoose to give you any pain, even on the chance of
its being a less pain, a less evil, than what may follow perhaps, (who can say?)
if I should prove the burden of your life.

For if you make me happy with some words, you frighten me with
others .. as with the extravagance yesterday!—& seriously, .. too
seriously, when the moment for smiling at them is past, .. I am frightened .. I
tremble! When you come to know me as well as I know myself, what can save me, do
you think, from disappointing & displeasing you? I ask the question, &
find no answer–

It is a poor answer, to say that I can do one thing well .. that
I have one capacity largely. On points of the general affections, I have in
thought applied to myself the words of Mdme de Stael .. not fretfully, I hope ..
not complainingly, I am sure .. (I can thank God for most affectionate friends!)
not complainingly, yet mournfully & in profound conviction .. those words ..
‘jamais je n’ai pas éte aimée comme j’aime’ [I have never been loved as I have loved]. The
capacity of loving is the largest of my powers I think– I thought so before
knowing you & one form of feeling. And although any woman might love you
.. every woman, .. with understanding enough to discern you by.—(oh, do
not fancy that I am unduly ‘magnifying mine office’) yet
I persist in persuading myself that .........! Because I have the capacity, as I
said!—and besides I owe more to you than others could, it seems to me!—let me
boast of it. To many, you might be better than all things while one of all
things:—to me you are instead of all!—to many, a crowning happiness.—to me, the
happiness itself. From out of the deep dark pits men see the stars more
gloriously—and de profundis amavi [Out of the depths have I loved]. .....

It is a very poor answer—! Almost as poor an answer as yours
could be if I were to ask you to teach me to please you always——or rather, how
not to displease you, disappoint you, vex you——what if all those things were
in my fate?"

She is morbid and a bit perverse but finally she admits that her love for Browning is profound. For the first time she uses the word 'love' in connection to him; today she does not simply 'care' for him.. She has a large capacity to love and she finally boasts in a self deprecating way: She can offer him nothing but the capacity to love him. She would rather die than hurt or disappoint him but does not chose to do so so as to not hurt him. Her convoluted reasoning is not unreasonable: what is worse than disappointing someone that you love and respect. Who among us doesn't at some point in their lives feel like a phony?

But she turns from her introspection to teazing:

"And .. (to begin! ..) I am
disappointed tonight. I expected a letter which does not come—& I had felt
so sure of having a letter tonight .. unreasonably sure perhaps, which means
doubly sure.

Friday. Remember you have had two notes of mine, &
that it is certainly not my turn to write, though I am writing.

Scarcely you had gone on wednesday when Mr Kenyon came. It seemed
best to me, you know, that you should go .. I had the presentiment of his
footsteps—&, so near they were, that if you had looked up the street in
leaving the door, you must have seen him! Of course I told him of your having
been here & also at his house, whereupon he enquired eagerly if you meant to
dine with him, seeming disappointed by my negative. 'Now I had told him,' he
said .. & murmured on to himself loud enough for me to hear, that 'it would
have been a peculiar pleasure &c'– The reason I have not seen him lately is
the eternal ‘business,’ just as you thought, & he means to come 'oftener
now'—so that nothing is wrong as I half thought.

As your letter does not come it is a good opportunity for asking
what sort of ill humour, or (to be more correct) bad temper, you most
particularly admire?—sulkiness? .. the divine gift of sitting aloof in a cloud
like any god for three weeks together perhaps—? pettishness .. which will get
you up a storm about a crooked pin or a straight one either? Obstinacy .. which
is an agreeable form of temper I can assure you, & describes itself?– Or the
good open passion which lies on the floor & kicks, like one of my cousins?– Certainly I prefer the last, & should
I think, prefer it, (as an evil) even if it were not the born weakness of my own
nature—though I humbly confess (to you, who seem to think differently of
these things) that never since I was a child, have I upset all the chairs &
tables & thrown the books about the room in a fury—I am afraid I do not even
‘kick’ .. like my cousin, now. Those demonstrations were all done by the 'light
of other days' .. not a very full light, I used to be
accustomed to think:—but you .. you think otherwise .. you
take a fury to be the opposite of ‘indifference’ .. as if there could be no such
thing as self-controul!. Now for my part, I do believe that the worst tempered
persons in the world, are less so through sensibility than selfishness—they
spare nobody’s heart, on the ground of being themselves pricked by a straw. Now
see if it is’nt so– What, after all, is a good temper but generosity in
trifles—& what without it, is the happiness of life?—we have only to look
round us. I saw a woman, once, burst into tears, because her husband cut
the bread & butter too thick. I saw that with my own eyes. Was it
sensibility, I wonder!– They were at least real tears & ran down her
cheeks. 'You always do it.'! she said."

I wonder what got them on the subject of 'ill humours'. We know Browning has a bad temper and Miss Barrett holds it all in and shuts down. They will be a good pair. Hopefully she will calm him down and he will draw her out.

"Why how you must sympathize with the heroes & heroines of the
French romances .. (do you sympathize with them very much? …) when at the
slightest provocation, they break up the tables & chairs, (a degree beyond
the deeds of my childhood!—I only used to upset them) break up the tables
& chairs & chiffoniers, & dash the china to atoms. The men do
the furniture, & the women the porcelain:—& pray observe that they
always set about this as a matter of course! When they have broken everything in
the room, they sink down quite (& very naturally) abattus [beaten down]! I remember a particular case of a hero of
Frederic Soulie’s who, in the course of an 'emotion,' takes up a chair
unconsciously, & breaks it into very small pieces, & then
proceeds with his soliloquy. Well!– The clearest idea this excites in me,
is of the low condition in Paris, of moral government & of upholstery.
Because .. just consider for yourself, .. how you would succeed in
breaking to pieces even a three-legged stool if it were properly put together as
stools are in England, .. just yourself, .. without a hammer & a
screw!—— You might work at it 'comme quatre [as hard as possible', &
find it hard to finish, I imagine. And then .. as a demonstration, … a child of
six years old might demonstrate just so (in his sphere) & be whipped
accordingly."

She obviously has never shopped at Rooms to Go (or as I am fond of calling it: Rooms to Glue). Just sayin'.

"How I go on writing!—& you, who do not write at all!—two
extremes, one set against the other.

But I must say, though in ever such an ill temper (which you know
is just the time to select for writing a panegyric upon good temper) that I am
glad you do not despise my own right name too much, because I never was called
Elizabeth by any one who loved me at all, & I accept the omen– So little it
seems my name that if a voice said suddenly ‘Elizabeth,’ I should as soon turn
round as my sisters would .. no sooner. Only, my own right name has been
complained of for want of euphony .. Ba .. now & then it has—& Mr
Boyd makes a compromise & calls me Elibet .. because nothing could
induce him to desecrate his organs accustomed to Attic harmonies, with a
Ba– So I am glad, & accept the omen.

But I give you no credit for not thinking that I may forget you
.. I!– As if you did not see the difference! Why, I could not even forget
to write to you, observe!——

Whenever you write, say, how you are. Were you wet on
wednesday?

Your own .."

What a wonderful letter. She begins with a bit of morbid, but loving, self examination and ends with an elegy on the joys of bad humor. I have a feeling that the visit of Wednesday was a success and the feeling has carried over into the next day.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Henrietta had a note from Mr Kenyon to the effect that he was
'coming to see Ba' today if in any way he found it possible. Now he
has not come—and the inference is that he will come tomorrow—in which case you
will be convicted of not wishing to be with him perhaps– So .. would it not be
advisable for you to call at his door for a moment—& before you come
here? Think of it. You know it would not do to vex him—would it?

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Every word you write goes to my heart and lives there: let us
live so, and die so, if God will. I trust many years hence to begin telling you
what I feel now;—that the beam of the light will have reached
you!—meantime it is here. Let me kiss your forehead, my sweetest,
dearest.

___________________________________________________________

Wednesday I am waiting for—how waiting for!

After all, it seems probable that there was no intentional
mischief in that jeweller’s management of the ring—the divided gold must have
been exposed to fire,—heated thoroughly, perhaps,—and what became of the
contents then! Well, all is safe now, and I go to work
again of course—my next act is just done,—that is, being done—but, what I
did not foresee, I cannot bring it, copied, by Wednesday, as my sister went this
morning on a visit for the week–"

Browning is referring to the loss of Miss Barrett's hair where it sat in the bezel of the ring that Browning took to the jeweler to have re sized. He seems to be absolving the jeweler of taking the hair: apparently the hair was destroyed when the metal was heated thru. Miss Barrett will just have to give up another curl to the cause of love.

"On the matters, the others, I will not think, as you bid me,—if I
can help, at least. But your kind, gentle, good sisters!—and the provoking
sorrow of the right meaning at bottom of the wrong doing—wrong to itself
and its plain purpose—and meanwhile, the real tragedy and sacrifice of a
life!"

Browning is alluding to Henrietta's sacrifice of her life with Captain Cook to the 'no marriage' edict of their father. He is very kindly rationalizing that her father's intentions are right despite the outcome being wrong. I wonder if he really believes that Mr. Barrett's meaning is 'right'. I have trouble understanding what Mr. Barrett's 'meaning' is in his opposition to his children's marrying so I cannot offer an opinion. Perhaps Mr. Barrett knew something that I do not know. But I doubt it.

"If you should see Mr Kenyon, and can find if he will be
disengaged on Wednesday evening .. I shall be glad to go in that case.

But I have been writing, as I say, and will leave off this, for
the better communing with you: don’t imagine I am unwell,—I feel quite well—but
a little tired, and the thought of you waits in such readiness! So, may God
bless you, beloved! I am all your own RB"

Miss Barrett writes later the same day:

"Monday.

Mr Kenyon has not come—he does not come so often I think. Did he
know from you that you were to see me last thursday? if he did it
might be as well .. do you not think? .. to go to him next week—. Will it not
seem frequent, otherwise? But if you did not tell him of thursday
distinctly, (I did not––remember!) he might take the wednesday’s visit to
be the substitute for rather than the successor of thursday’s:—and in that case,
why not write a word to him yourself to propose dining with him as he suggested?
He really wishes to see you—of that, I am sure. But you will know what is best
to do—& he may come here tomorrow perhaps, & ask a whole set of
questions about you, .. so my right hand may forget its cunning for any good it does. Only dont send
messages by me .. please!."

How happy I am with your letter tonight.

When I had sent away my last letter I began to remember .. &
could not help smiling to do so, .. that I had totally forgotten the great
subject of my 'fame,' & the oath you administered about it … totally!!– Now
how do you read that omen? If I forget myself, who is to remember me, do you
think? .. except you.? which brings me where I would stay. Yes!—'yours'
it must be—but you, it had better be!– But, to leave the vain
superstitions, let me go on to assure you that I did mean to answer that part of
your former letter, & do mean to behave well & be obedient. Your wish
would be enough, even if there could be likelihood without it of my doing
nothing ever again. Oh, certainly I have been idle—it comes of lotos-eating ..
&, besides, of sitting too long in the sun. Yet
‘idle’ may not be the word—: silent I have been, through too many thoughts to
speak .. just that! As to writing letters & reading manuscripts’
filling all my time, why I must lack ‘vital energy’ indeed .. you do not mean
seriously to fancy such a thing of me!– For the rest …"

She is responding to Browning's comment in his letter of December 12th: "And one of the things I must say, will be, that with my love, I cannot lose my
pride in you—that nothing but that love, could balance that pride—and
that, blessing the love so divinely, you must minister to the pride as well,
yes, my own—I shall follow your fame,—and, better than fame, the good you do—in
the world—and, if you please, it shall all be mine—as your hand, as your eyes–"

But she is being coy when she says that she has not been idle but silent. We can see that she has been busy working on the Sonnet Sequence and we will see evidence of the connection even in this letter.

"Tell me—— Is it your opinion that when the apostle Paul saw the
unspeakable things,—being snatched up into the third Heavens 'whether in the
body or out of the body he could not tell,' … is
it your opinion that, all the week after, he worked particularly hard at the
tent-making? For my part, I doubt it."

A simple, beautiful analogy. Browning should take a lesson.

"I would not speak profanely or extravagantly—it is not the best
way to thank God. But to say only that I was in the desert & that I am among
the palm-trees, is to say nothing … because it is easy to understand how,
after walking straight on .. on .. furlong after furlong .. dreary day after
dreary day, .. one may come to the end of the sand & within sight of the
fountain:—there is nothing miraculous in that, you know!–

Yet even in that case, .. to doubt whether it may not all be
mirage, would be the natural first thought .. the recurring dream-fear!.
now would it not? And you can reproach me for my thoughts, .. as if
they were unnatural!—!!"

Try the palm in Sonnet XXIX:

I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and budAbout thee, as wild vines, about a tree,Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to seeExcept the straggling green which hides the wood.Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understoodI will not have my thoughts instead of theeWho art dearer, better! Rather, instantlyRenew thy presence; as a strong tree should,Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee,Drop heavily down,—burst, shattered everywhere!Because, in this deep joy to see and hear theeAnd breathe within thy shadow a new air,I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.

"Never mind about the third act––the advantage is that you will
not ‘tire’ yourself perhaps the next week. What gladness it is that you should
really seem better—& how much better that is than even ‘Luria’!–